Soooooooo tired this morning. Since we’d had such a bad night’s sleep last night, I let Reed sleep until he woke up on his own (Adam too). Reed woke up very stuffy, kind of crabby, and not really into eating much in the way of solid foods. I dropped him off at daycare and he seemed pretty happy there playing with his favorite toys. Ended up getting to work around 8:20. This is one of those days that I wish I actually liked coffee.

Fortunately, it’s a teaching day, so I know that’ll wake me up. I really love teaching, because it gets me working with students and faculty, it gets my energy levels up, and, well, it’s just fun most of the time. I used to be terrified of teaching, but over time I’ve not only become comfortable with it, but I really enjoy doing it.

Met with the Distance Learning Librarian (who I supervise) to catch up on what she’s been working on and the progress of some of the committees she’s a member of. She is a very self-directed and highly competent employee, so sometimes it’s easy to forget that she’s only been here since August and still needs plenty of support and advice. I talked to her about presenting on a committee we’re co-chairing at the Library Council meeting tomorrow morning since she could use more experience taking the reins in committee work.

Prepped for the International Studies senior seminar I’m teaching this afternoon. I’ve been trying to find the happy medium between over-preparing (which leads to boring) and under-preparing (which leads to screw-ups) for my instruction sessions and I think I’m getting closer to a happy medium. I’m trying a new instructional technique with this class to get the students more involved, so we’ll see if it’s a success or a major flop.

Did some collection development work as I’m woefully behind in the spending of my liaison funds.

Discussed the website redesign with the Systems Librarian and saw some graphical elements that the university webmaster had made for us. They look completely awesome and I’m so glad he was willing to work with the library on this since graphical design skills are something seriously lacking amongst the library staff.

At 1:45, the International Studies seminar showed up (15 minutes early — damn I’m glad I always start setting up early!). It’s a small class of 11 students, so an ideal one to try out new ideas with. Their assignment for the semester is to write a major research paper on some political, economic or historical topic relating to the country in which they’d studied abroad the year before, so there is a huge range of library resources that could be helpful depending on the topic. Fortunately, I had two hours with the students, so we covered a lot of ground. I’d gone in assuming that since they were seniors who’d taken plenty of history and political science classes (International Studies is an interdisciplinary major), they would already have lots of experience using resources like JSTOR, CIAO, WorldCat, etc. After asking the students a few questions at the beginning of the session, I realized how wrong I was. Only half had used JSTOR and none had used CIAO or WorldCat. Wow! So, that required a bit of readjustment in how I’d planned to teach the class. The one thing I really wanted to try with this class is to have students come up to my computer and do searches on their research topic. I guessed that students would pay more attention if it was their classmate up there, and I thought I could offer suggestions and search tips that they might be more likely to remember if they were the ones doing the searching. It also just makes more sense to do searches on their topics than on canned ones I came up with.

The class ended up being the best one I’ve ever taught. The students actually clapped for me at the end, which was a hoot. The students and the professor were even taking notes during the session, which is not something I often see. I had to do a little more demo-ing of the databases than I’d planned originally, but I still had them doing the searching most of the time. They really responded well to coming up to the computer to do their searching. I chose people to come up to do different searches based on the nature of their topic (economic, current political, historical, historical political, etc.). And it worked out nicely, because some students had the problem of having very few result and needing to broaden their search and others had the problem of too many and needing to narrow their topic. There were lots of nice examples to use as teaching moments. Not only was I giving them suggestions as they were searching, but the other students were as well. They were asking all sorts of questions about the databases. I fed off the students’ energy and definitely was more energetic and animated than I am with a class where the students don’t seem engaged. I came out of class feeling completely excited, awake and happy.

It’s experiences like this that remind me of why I love my job so much. Some days I’m mired in meetings, paperwork, creating tutorials and other activities that pretty much have me sitting in a chair all day. I like some of those activities (especially creating tutorials), but if that was all there was in my job, it wouldn’t be for me. But then there are those days when I get a lot of reference questions at the desk or I teach, where I really get to help students and faculty. That’s the stuff I love most about my job. Fortunately, as the semester gets going (it’s only week 2), I’ll have more and more interactions like these that will leave me energized and grateful to have the job I do.

I was tied to my desk this morning since I was on-call for reference until noon (which means checking email, being available on IM, and being available for anyone who needs research help). Spent most of the morning working on course guides for upcoming Asian Politics, American Politics and Intro to Political Science classes. When working on the Asian politics guide, I realized that, while we had a ton of books on China and on Islam in Asia, we didn’t have so many on Japan, India, South Korea, etc. We’ve been doing a lot of purchasing on China because of a new Chinese language major and a new concentration on Chinese history, but I don’t want to see the other areas suffer. This took me off on a tangent to find the best recent books on politics and economic policy in other areas of Asia.

My director asked me if she should count research consultations she’s doing with Sports Medicine students as reference or instruction. Good question! I asked folks on Twitter how they record statistics on individual consultations and libraries seem to be pretty divided on how they handle it. I like the idea of counting it as reference, but in a separate category of reference. Emailed Head of Reference to ask her to add that to the agenda for our next meeting.

Helped a faculty member request a journal through ILL.

Our distance learning librarian asked me if I knew how to change certain content in Drupal for our website and after digging for a while, I realized that I had no idea. I asked her to contact the librarian who built the site for us to find out how we can change this block content since we can’t actually find where it’s being generated from. Talked with her about that new online program we’re concerned about being able to support as well as library instruction, and I ended up giving her another one of my History 108 classes since she’s interested in getting more teaching experience.

Adam called to see how I was doing (so-so, still haven’t tried eating) and let me know that Reed was happily crawling around at daycare when he left. That’s good, because he was in one heck of a bad mood this morning between the gum pain of teething and the runny nose. Poor little guy!

Taught a student, via IM, how to find a specific journal article online from a citation.

Eating lunch (Nilla Wafers since I’m feeling so poorly) and catching up on feeds. Just got an email that I was accepted for the Program Track of ACRL Immersion this summer, which is conveniently located in Burlington, VT. this summer. AWESOME! It’s going to eat up my entire professional development budget for the next fiscal year, so it’ll be a bummer that that’s the only thing I’ll be able to attend from June 2010-May 2011.

Met with librarian whose class I observed last week to discuss my evaluation of her teaching. We discussed possible ways she could improve her delivery and make the class more engaging.

Posted to my SJSU class site about the Library Day in the Life project so students could get a sense of what it’s like to work in a library type or job they might be interested in.

Recorded statistics from instruction sessions I’ve taught and tutorials I’ve created over the last two months. Bad head of instruction!!!

Lots of little things. Took a walk around the library since I’ve been sitting at my desk WAY too long and caught up with several colleagues along the way. Emailed my slides from yesterday’s talk on Drupal in education to a faculty member who’d requested it. Sent the woman coordinating my travel for the conference I’m presenting at in Buffalo in May information on the flights I’d like to take. I hate flying US Air, but the flight times were the most convenient for being away from the family as little as possible.

Did a little more work on the course guides before leaving to pick up Reed from daycare. The women at daycare told me that he’d needed Tylenol during the day, so clearly he was not having the best of days. He vacillated between happy and hysterical all evening and fell asleep around 7:30, though by 9pm, it was obvious that he was not going to sleep well since he was rolling around in his crib and banging into the bars. We ended up taking him to bed with us, which was better for him, but not so good for us. No one in our house ended up getting a great night’s sleep.

Arrived at work by 7:45 and checked my email. Always amazing how much comes in after/before business hours.

Called Adam to make sure Reed got off to daycare ok (he did).

Met with our new Systems Librarian to talk about his evaluation of my teaching in the Popular Culture of Modern Europe (a senior seminar) class I taught last week. (We just started doing a peer evaluation of instruction project this semester for the first time and I’m really excited to see how it goes.) I had tried some new activities and was really happy with how it went for the most part. He really liked the primary source activity I did and though that most of the students really got into it (I chose some pretty fun primary sources for them to analyze). The weak points he noticed were the same ones I had noted that I wanted to improve upon. I also talked to him about instruction in general. He’s new to instruction and not yet confident in what he’s doing, so I talked to him about my own experiences early on with instruction (and how much I sucked) and told him that he just needs to keep doing it and find his own style of teaching.

Got a request for information literacy instruction from a faculty member in political science I’ve never worked with before. She asked me to teach in all four of her classes. AWESOME! I’ve been on a mission over the past two years to convince the faculty in the social sciences that I have something useful to offer, and finally, over the past few months, I feel like I’m at a tipping point. I’ve been offering faculty workshops on different topics and have been creating more online tutorials in areas they find valuable. Most importantly, I’ve made sure to tell them about everything I’ve been doing, and one faculty member who has become a “fan” has also been singing my praises. I’ve been getting emails from people who for years have never responded to any emails I’ve sent and I’m getting asked to do instruction for faculty I’ve never taught classes for before. It’s nice to know that the slow-and-steady strategy does sometimes work!

Got into a friendly debate on FriendFeed about Clay Shirky’s “Rant about women.” I love when you can discuss something with a group of people where you might disagree, but you’re still respectful and like each other at the end of it all. I didn’t stop work to go be on FriendFeed, but I’d peek at it every once in a while when I was working on other stuff and put my 2 cents in.

Wrote to the faculty member teaching the political science research methods course this semester to see if he’d be interested in my teaching an information literacy session for his students. He never responds to my emails that I send out to all faculty in his department, so I thought I’d try the personal route. Not sure he’ll see a need for it, but it’s worth a try.

Talked to the Head of Reference about scheduling a reference/instruction meeting for next week. I want to review with everyone how the first few peer reviews have gone and answer any questions I can for people who haven’t done it yet. Lots more to discuss in reference though.

Talked to our new Systems Librarian about teaching one of the classes I have coming up. He chose History 108, where students need to do research for a recreation of the Paris Peace Conference (where each group of students will represent one of the countries or interests there – it’s a cool assignment!). I’ve got six sections of this class coming in, so he’ll be able to observe me before doing it himself. Made a mental note to email the faculty member and let him know – he’s a really nice guy, so I’m sure he’ll welcome the opportunity to give my colleague more experience teaching.

Started to work on course guides for the upcoming political science classes. Will have to create three in a hurry plus one on Modern Russian History, so my workload just increased!

Shoved some food in my mouth before running to give a brown bag lunch presentation for the School of Graduate Studies on using Drupal in education and talked about my experiences using it at San Jose State. One faculty member is interested in using it as a community platform for students in his online program where they could communicate across classes and share resources. It sounds like an ideal use of Drupal.

Attended a library all-staff meeting where our new Systems Librarian unveiled his idea for the new front page of our website. I like the concept and with some polishing on the graphical design end, it’ll be a great improvement to our site. Must say that I’m glad it’s not me having to do that anymore – I was the webmaster for several years and, while it was nice to have that sort of control, it was a pain to try and make everyone happy. I’m not sure our Systems Librarian really knows what he’s in for!

Checked feeds, took a look at recent issues of C&RL and C&RL News. Checked out some flights for two conferences I’ll be attending in April and May. I want to minimize my time away from Reed since I’ve never actually been away from him for even a 24-hour period yet! Just thinking about being away from him for a few days makes me teary.

My class for San Jose State started today and I commented on some of the posts students have been making. Looks like a really great group of students!

Worked more on course guides for those upcoming classes. I’m particularly excited about teaching the one on Asian Politics!

At 4:30, I headed over the mountain to Reed’s daycare to pick him up. He was playing happily with toys and didn’t even notice me when I came in until I called his name. Then we headed home for play and bath-time. He’s got a little cold and is SO CLOSE to getting his first tooth, so he’s been in a not-so-great mood on-and-off. Still, we had a pretty nice evening and he got to bed at his usual time (though he woke up 5 or 6 times that night, sigh). After he went to bed (around 7pm), I answered some emails, made some comments in my Drupal classroom, and folded and put away some laundry while watching “Chuck” on our TiVo.

On Mondays, I work from 1pm until 9:30pm as I have the evening reference shift. This was the first Monday that we’ve ever put Reed in daycare; until now, I’ve watched him until 12:30 and Adam had him the rest of the day. Losing a day of work-time just wasn’t working anymore for Adam, and with my Web 2.0 class starting tomorrow, I’m going to be a lot busier too. Reed is a very high-energy, social boy, so daycare really suits him and he’s always happy to be there. I went to visit Reed on my way to work and absolutely did not want to leave his daycare. I go through phases where I appreciate having productive adult time away from him and phases where I can’t stand not hugging him all day long. Lately I’ve been in the latter phase of mommyhood.

Since I took Friday off last week to spend my husband’s birthday with him, I came back to a mountain of emails. I first answered emails that I could get through quickly and flagged those that required more thoughtful attention. I’ve been bugging faculty in my liaison areas to request books for purchase and it’s finally paying off, so I passed a big bunch of paper and electronic acquisitions requests on to our Acquisitions Associate who orders books. There are certain programs still that aren’t purchasing much, and the way it’s set up in the School of Social Sciences, if psychology (or another department) doesn’t spend their money, the rest of the faculty in the other social science areas can spend it (as opposed to me spending it on psychology books). This worries me because I feel like we’re doing a poor job developing the collection in certain areas, but I can’t just take the reins on this when faculty have always controlled the book funds.

I then went next door and talked to the Distance Learning Librarian about a new online program being proposed by the school of graduate studies since we just received the proposal for it in our Inbox this weekend. We both question whether we can adequately support the program. I feel strongly that some programs should still be taught face-to-face because of the dearth of online resources in those areas. This is definitely one of them. We’ve been asked to create an estimate of how much it will cost for the library to support this program, and we know our figure will be far more than they will be willing to support. I wrote an email to the faculty member proposing the new online program asking for some clarifications on his proposal so that we can get a better idea about the program’s potential resource needs.

Went downstairs to talk to the Head of Digital Initiatives about some feedback I got from a faculty member on our WorldCat Local pilot project. We just started a pilot project using WorldCat Local as our default catalog search interface. I’m pretty curious to see how people respond to it.

I also talked to him about getting some quotes on the databases we think we’d need in order to be able to support the proposed online program. I then worked on a list of online databases to get quotes on for this new program (looked at Universities that have respected programs in this area for ideas). The list quickly became ridiculously large, so I will ask the professor proposing the program to narrow it down to what he thinks would be useful.

I took a look at new University Customer Service draft policy and saw how it compared to the reference guidelines we’re working on. Fortunately, they seem to complement each other quite well, and the University-wide policy gives me a few ideas for additions to our policy. Realized that we don’t have a signature file for our reference email account, which might be nice for providing info on the additional ways that students can get in contact with us and/or at what times we staff each. I email our Head of Reference about the idea.

Ate a quick dinner and checked my RSS feeds in Google Reader. Chatted with Adam on the phone for a few minutes and got sad when I heard Reed giggling in the background. I hate Mondays because by the time I come home, he’s already asleep.

Worked on slides for a brown-bag lunch presentation I’m giving tomorrow on using Drupal in education for the School of Graduate Studies. I’m not 100% sure if I’ll even use the slides or if I’ll just talk and show them my Drupal classroom live online – it really depends on the audience.

Got on the reference desk and signed into the reference email accounts and Meebo. Had a question at the desk from a student looking for historical map resources. Had trouble finding exactly what he was looking for, but gave him some suggestions that might prove fruitful. Realize that we don’t have many really good historic atlases and make a note to see what I might purchase in that area.

Answered a few basic questions during the next three hours, but it was really slow, which I hate since reference questions energize me. I spent most of the time finishing a blog post I’d started at home and going through a large pile of CHOICE Cards. I have a small liaison fund that I can spend and I try to focus my purchasing on areas that are underrepresented by faculty purchasing and/or are areas where I know students are doing a lot of research. As a result, I tend to wait until the last minute to spend a lot of my money since I don’t know which areas faculty are going to do purchasing in. I’m sure our Acquisitions Associate just loves me.

At 9:15, it’s nearly time to leave. Always sad to come home and not be able to give my little guy a hug, but I’ll probably end up hanging out with him at 1am when he decides he’s hungry. Ah, the life of a working mother!

I guess I see a difference between risk-taking and compromising one’s values. I’m not a liar. I’m not a jerk (at least I don’t think I am). I won’t use people to get ahead like I’ve seen a couple of people do even in our profession. And yet I’ve had great success in my field, far beyond what seems reasonable given my limited years of experience. How did I achieve that success? By doing good work and taking risks. I’m not an aggressive person. I suck at asking for money and advocating for myself. I never overstate my qualifications. I’m just one of the many, many, many people in the profession who have good ideas and an interesting way of presenting them. The one thing that sets me apart from many of the other people out there with great ideas is that I’m not afraid to put myself out there and face possible rejection or failure. i have enough chutzpah to suggest to the head of ALA’s publishing wing that he give me a column in American Libraries since the worst thing that will happen is that he’ll say no. I write blog posts talking about how much I’d like to teach for an LIS program since the worst thing that will happen is that no one will be interested. I don’t risk incarceration or my con being discovered (as Shirky describes); I just risk my heart. And that seems to be enough.

The simple fact is, I’m not willing to compromise my values to get ahead. And if that makes me weak, if that holds me back, so be it. I’d rather go to bed at night feeling good about myself and knowing that the people I like like me too. Compromising my values would keep me up at night and would make me worry that I’d be found out (is impostor syndrome still called impostor syndrome if you are, in fact, an impostor?). There are lots of things I wouldn’t do to get ahead. I wouldn’t take a job I know I wouldn’t like but that would pay really well and would be a huge boost for my career (and, in fact, I turned down a job just like that a couple of years ago). I wouldn’t take a job in an area my husband would hate or where I wouldn’t feel safe raising my child. I would not be a happy person if I wasn’t true to who I am.

Where I agree with Shirky is that self-promotion and risk-taking are important skills that women too often lack. I barely spoke in class in college until I took a course called Women and the American Experience, which was entirely populated by other women. For once, I felt comfortable expressing myself and realized that my ideas were actually pretty good. I hate that Shirky seems to think that confidence or the ability to promote onesself are male traits. That’s B.S. I don’t think confidence is something born to men and not to women; I think it’s something that we learn (or not) along the way through our families, the education system and society. However, whether we are naturally confident self-promoting risk-takers or not, the fact is that we need to be to be successful. I know so many talented women who are afraid to put themselves in a position where they might fail or be humiliated. However, I also know a lot of men like this too. Men who are uncomfortable fighting for themselves or for their ideas. One of my colleagues has given two talks in the 2 1/2 years since getting his first professional position; both of which I arranged for him. He’s a smart cookie and a great speaker, but he just doesn’t put himself out there. This isn’t just a gender issue; it’s an issue for a lot of talented individuals out there who don’t seem to realize that they’re as awesome as they are.

Another thing that really bothers me about Shirky’s post is that he seems to reward jerky self-aggrandizing behavior. If you think there’s something wrong with the system as it is and you’re in a position of power, wouldn’t it make sense to change it? How about encouraging and trying to build up talented women in your classes so they feel more comfortable promoting themselves? I was very lucky to have a mentor like Roy Tennant, who believes in nurturing and promoting young, talented individuals in the profession. He has given me so much great advice and encouragement that I likely wouldn’t be where I am today without his wise counsel. He is a well-known and respected librarian and uses his position to promote people around him. I completely agree with danah boyd who writes -

We need men as allies, men who both encourage women to speak up and who consciously choose to spotlight women who are talented. But, more importantly, we need men (and anyone with privilege) to consciously and conscientiously account for their own privilege and biases and to actively work to highlight and embrace diverse voices of all kinds. Your interpretation of others is just as (if not more) important in creating change as their efforts to impress you. The privileged cannot expect the disenfranchised to assimilate, as tempting as that may be. And even if that were possible, it wouldn’t give us the society we want anyhow.

I’ve used my limited success to promote others who I think are awesome — both male and female. Some of these people would be great self-promoters on their own and others just aren’t comfortable in that role. Like Roy, I’m trying to create the sort of world I want to live in, where people are judged more by their talent than by their ability to promote themselves.

I think Clay Shirky’s thinking — his promotion of basically being a d-bag — is just the sort of thinking that on Wall Street got us into the global financial crisis. Because it was a system that rewards “self-promoting narcissists” who make risky decisions for short-term personal gain that created this whole mess. And while most of those same people who created that mess are still making their $500,000 (or more) bonuses and can sleep at night just fine, I couldn’t. And, frankly, I’m glad about that. I’m glad that I have a moral compass. Are those the kind of values you want to promote in your profession? In your world? I refuse to bend so much to the world around me that I become someone I can’t respect; I’d rather try to make the world bend to my values. We can change things, bit by bit.

I made a lot of changes to the topics covered in the class in light of how much Web 2.0 technologies have changed. I’d originally wanted to teach a class on online communities, but I couldn’t find enough good readings (or a textbook) for an entire course (now that Nancy White, et al.’s new book on Digital Habitats is out, it might be easier to do). I decided instead to focus more on online community-building in the course and am spending two weeks on it. I’m also having three guest speakers who run online communities: Frances Roehm of Skokie Net, Jessamyn West of MetaFilter, and my hubby, Adam Farkas, of ODwire. I know there are a lot of other topics I could have covered (cloud computing, mobile technologies, mashups, etc.), but I’m pretty happy with this semester’s lineup and I look forward to read my students reflections and discussions on these topics.

A while back, I’d asked folks on Twitter/FriendFeed/Facebook for suggestions of good Facebook pages to use as examples in my class. I thought I’d share those in case others are interested. You can find the list here. I don’t know that they’re the best Facebook pages, but I think they will give students some interesting food for thought.

As always in my classes, people from outside the class can register in the classroom and post comments on mine and my students’ posts. So feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed and/or join the conversation!

I started corresponding with the creator of Following Featherbottom and he let me know about another project he just started that I thought might be of interest to librarians and user-generated content fans. It’s called Project OpenBook and its goal is to develop a community-generated book of poetry to sell for charity. People can contribute poetry or artwork and/or can rate the poems that others have contributed to help decide what goes into the book and what does not. Proceeds from the book will go to Room to Read to save a child in Nepal from slavery and pay for her education.

Please consider supporting Project OpenBook. Contribute a poem or artwork, rate a poem, donate to the cause, or buy the finished book when it’s out! I think it’s a really cool idea to get people involved in creating something special for children that will benefit a disadvantaged child tremendously.

I think many of the most important lessons I’ve learned are important ones for all of us in our careers:

1. Leaps of faith often pay off (or better to fail or succeed at the right thing than be successful at the wrong one) – When I first considered the possibility of leaving the social work field for librarianship, I was extremely nervous about it. I’d already gotten one graduate degree that didn’t lead to a satisfying career, and I didn’t relish the idea of getting (nor could I afford to get) another one in a field that I may not end up fitting into either. But something in my gut told me I should do it; that it would be a right fit for me. I took that leap and have never regretted it. I’d gone to graduate school for social work more out of fear than anything else — I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do after college, but I was interested in mental health issues and dove into that for lack of a better idea. Grad school was a safe space away from the scary world of work. Going to library school was the opposite of safe — leaving a professional psychotherapist position to go make $10/hr at a public library while paying for graduate school.

That leads me to the second lesson I learned — 2. the biggest growth experiences come from doing things that scare you – I spent so much time in my earlier years not doing things out of fear. In college, I wrote a lot of poetry and short stories, but I never submitted them to any of the literary magazines at Wesleyan. Because I was afraid of speaking in class, I avoided a lot of great seminars and instead took larger lecture classes that were far less interesting/satisfying. I let fear make my decisions for me. I guess now I do that too, only in the opposite way. I was so afraid to speak in public; more afraid than I can express. But because of my blog and book deal, people kept asking me to speak and I felt like I’d be a fool to say no. Anyone who saw me before my first talk at Computers in Libraries in 2006 can tell you that I was nervous beyond reason. But I gave the talk. And it wasn’t so bad. In fact, I found that I rather enjoyed the excited/nervous adrenaline rush I got from the experience. I’ve become a much better speaker than I was then, but I still get that nervous adrenaline rush before I speak, and I think it makes me a better/higher energy speaker for it. From leaning into my fear, I’ve learned that I’m so much more capable than I initially believed I was.

Recently, a colleague of mine forgot that he had scheduled an instruction session for an English 101 class at 11am and was not planning on coming in that day until 1pm. I only found out about this when the professor and her class showed up at 11am and no one was there to teach them. I had to sprint to get set up and taught a class I had done literally no preparation for and just found out about their assignment that very moment. And, ironically, it ended up being one of the best classes I’ve taught in recent memory. I was high-energy and I think the students really fed off that because they were much more engaged and involved than in most classes I teach. I realized that perhaps I’ve gotten a little too comfortable with my instruction work and that maybe I need to shake it up a bit and try new things that might be a little scary and that might blow up in my face. Because I’m at my best when that adrenaline is flowing.

3. Don’t sell yourself short – What in the world could someone who just got their library degree possibly have to teach experienced librarians about social software? What makes you think you could write an entire book and who in the world will read it? These were just a few of the negative thoughts that swirled around my head at the start of my library career. I didn’t think I possibly had anything useful to offer people, having only been a professional librarian a few short months before getting my book deal. I remember when I was going to give a keynote at UC Berkeley on what the 2.0 organization looks like, I thought I’d get laughed off the stage, since what the hell do I know, not having even been a manager? Even recently, I was asked to write a brief essay for a symposium at ALA Midwinter and wanted to back out when I saw the list of heavy hitters who would also be contributing. While I’ve heard some librarians call me a “rock star”, I still often feel like I just graduated from the kids table.

I may not have the depth of experience of someone who has worked in the profession 30 years. I may not be as tech-savvy as a John Blyberg or a Jason Griffey. I may not be as humorous as a Steve Lawson or an Andrew Pace. I may not be as brilliant and articulate as a Dorothea Salo. But I’ve learned (and am still learning) that it’s ok. I don’t need to be all those things. I don’t need to have all the answers. I bring something different to the table that also has value. People find my perspective unique and interesting, so I don’t need to be like all of those other people as long as I am myself.

I remember being on a panel last summer with a colleague whom I admire greatly. She said that she was so nervous being on a panel with “rock stars.” Funny, because she’s a rock star to me with her passion for the profession and effervescent personality. The fact is, we all have moments where we feel intimidated; even the people we admire do. We all bring something special to the table, and as long as we’re being ourselves and not trying to be Dorothea Salo, Roy Tennant or John Blyberg, we’re probably going to rock it. Because the other lesson that I learned is that 4. you’ll be much happier and more successful when you stop trying to be like other people and start just being yourself. Trying to be like someone else is a lot of work and is rarely satisfying. Embracing who you are and what you have to offer the profession/your community/the world is the best thing — both for yourself and the people who will be able to benefit from your “you-ness.”

5. Don’t get too stuck on a specific vision of your future – My husband is nothing like the kind of guy I thought I wanted to marry. I was into the “sensitive guy” type who liked literature, jazz, indie films, etc. My husband listens to Metallica, likes movies like “Escape from New York,” and hasn’t read anything remotely literary since high school. But he ended up being my soul mate, and had I been stuck on that vision of the sort of guy I wanted to be with, I would never have gone on a second date with him. I had a friend (in her 30s at the time) who was so stuck on a specific vision of what the man she would consider getting serious with should be like that she was constantly rejecting perfectly nice guys she’d date for the silliest of reasons. As a result, she was lonely, but felt that she could not compromise on these silly standards of hers.

You might think that there’s only one type of job that is right for you in the library field. You might be sure that there are other things you would hate doing, based on a hunch. Consider for a moment that you might be wrong. I thought that I absolutely did not want to do face to face instruction when I got out of grad school, and yet, once I gave it a try, I found it was one of the things I most enjoyed. Now I’m the head of instruction at my library — go figure! Open yourself up to interesting possibilities. In this job market, there may simply not be any positions in the area in which you’re interested in working. Being flexible does not mean doing something you absolutely won’t enjoy (just like being flexible doesn’t mean dating someone you absolutely aren’t interested in), but it means being open to the possibility that there could be other options out there that you’d like as much (if not more!).

6. You don’t need to keep going to school to keep learning — I remember thinking when I was in college that I’d like to go to school forever so that I could keep taking classes and learning new things. I wanted a PhD in History, not because I wanted to teach, but because I wanted to keep learning and researching and writing. While I’m not taking classes anymore, I’ve discovered that it’s easy to keep the learning going and recreate the experience of the classroom in the online world. While I may not have one specific teacher, the whole Internet has become my teacher. I’ve created my own personal learning environment (PLE) through blogs, RSS feeds, journals, books (well, not so much lately), and — most importantly — my network on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and in the blogosphere. Because it’s the conversation that really makes the learning meaningful — the reflection, discussion, disagreement, sharing of experiences, and learning from others’ experiences. I am so grateful to be part of a community of brilliant, thoughtful and generous individuals who have taught me so much over the past 5 years.

I’d meant to publish this on December 31st or January 1st, but, as usual, life (or Reed pulling books off the shelf, trying to open the kitchen cabinets, or climbing me) trumped blogging. I’m glad my life is trumping blogging, because it’s an awesome life and watching Reed grow up is a fantastic reason to not be online. That’s not to say that I don’t miss blogging. I miss having an outlet for my thoughts and the time to write them out/work them out online. I miss the conversations. I miss a lot of things. But I’m coming to accept that I can’t have it all. I hope finding a better balance between work/teaching/speaking/baby/husband/friends/blogging/etc. will be one of the things I learn next year. And hopefully as Reed becomes more independent (he’s crawling, standing and cruising already!) I’ll have more time for non-Reed things.

My New Year’s wish — may the good things in all of your lives trump blogging, tweeting, etc. this year. We should all be so lucky.

My Nominations for The 2009 Edublog Awards are:

Best New Blog – In the Library with the Lead Pipe (just over 1 year old; hope that counts as new!)

Best resource sharing blog – The Distant Librarian

Best librarian / library blog – The Distant Librarian

Best elearning / corporate education blog – The Bamboo Project

I can’t think of another blogger who has more consistently brought things to my attention that I hadn’t seen before and that I found useful in my work as an academic librarian than Paul Pival. If you’re in an academic library or are interested in instructional technologies and you don’t read his blog, you should!

I’m relatively new to the “mommy blogging” world. While my husband and I have a blog to keep family and friends up-to-date on Reed (which we’re terrible about actually updating), I don’t consider myself a “mommy blogger.” But I do read mommy/daddy/parenting blogs. Until this week, I was pretty well out of the loop regarding the brouhaha with compensated reviews and the chummy relationships between companies and bloggers, probably because the few blogs I read tend to be ones that don’t go for that sort of thing. Then, out of nowhere, the other day, on a blog that had never contained anything of the sort, I saw a disclaimer at the top of a post reading “This is a compensated review from BlogHer and x company.” Huh? So apparently, the bloggers were paid to try out a product (which they were also given for free) and write about it. And I should trust that review why? I noticed that there were about 60 comments on the post, so I assumed that their other readers were equally horrified by this post and were telling the writers about their disgust. Well, no. They were commenting in order to get a chance at a free sample of the product!

Little did I know how common this sort of thing was in the mommy-blogging world. Coming from a blog community where compensated reviews are anathema, I have a strong sense of disgust when I see people getting money or perks from a company whose product they are reviewing. It makes me not only not trust what they are writing about that product, but what they write about everything else becomes suspect. So it was surprising to me to see a post like this show up on an otherwise great blog without anyone batting an eyelash (other than to try and win some free stuff).

I started to look a little more into the world of mommy blogging. There are tons of bloggers out there who will write a positive review for pretty much anything they’re given for free (or are otherwise compensated for). Just do a Google search for the statement “compensated review from BlogHer” and you will find blogs that do nothing but review things in exchange for free products, gift certificates, and even trips to faraway places (I just read a bunch of blog posts from some mommy bloggers who got a free trip to visit the Smuckers headquarters and almost lost my lunch). And you’ll almost never find a negative review on any of them. What’s amazing is that some of these blogs have huge readerships. Maybe it’s for the freebies they often dole out from these companies, or maybe some mothers are still willing to trust a review from a blogger who is being compensated by the company whose product they’re reviewing. Scary thought.

I never looked much into BlogHer, though I thought it was an organization/community devoted to empowering and highlighting women in the blogopshere. I knew they had a conference, which sounded awesome. After seeing that “compensated review” statement, I checked out their site and found that they were not only about empowering women, but also connecting advertisers with female bloggers to review their products online. Maybe I just have an over-inflated sense of ethics, but this really bothers me. It feels like they’re taking advantage of their network to make money off the women who blog and read their blogs. Their Advertising kit (PDF) says “BlogHer’s unique relationship with its audience provides the ideal platform for marketers to reach and engage this valuable audience in this exciting new medium.” It’s one thing for companies to advertise on the BlogHer network, but they offer “Product Reviews and Custom Widgets – Our selected bloggers will review your products or web-site and provide a fair and balanced review which will be shared with the 15MM women in our network. A widget containing the reviews creates scale and immerses our audience in your brand through these reviews.” I’m not quite sure how promoting a company’s product for a quick buck is empowering to women.

Reading mommy blogs this past weekend, I found a lot to be disgusted by. Here’s a sampling of some choice statements from disclaimers and policies (sans names or links, as I’d rather not give these blogs any sort of promotion):

“This blog accepts various types of advertisements and is open to any suggestions. Payments are all to be made via PayPal.
Pricing are as follow:
Sponsored Post (minimum 200 words) $20.00
Product Review (send sample) $20.00
Product Giveaway (additional to the review rate) $30.00″

“Products I cannot find anything positive to include in a review will not be included on this blog. Why? I’m not a negative person.”

“The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.”

“I write a personal blogsite called ___, and somewhere along the way I realized that I could offer my opinions to others because I’m a visible entity on the web, who deals honestly with others. If I say it, you can trust that I mean it.”

“The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products.”

“If I feel that your product does not meet quality standards, I will contact you before posting any comments. I also reserve the right not to post a review if I feel in any way the product will not relate to my family nor my readers. To date, I have not received an item for review that I did not feel fit my website or readers.”

“I am married with three children in each of the core age ranges, 2, 10, and 16.”

“FULL DISCLOSURE: This is an uncompensated review. Warner Bros. sent a copy of this video game for me to review and has kindly offered to provide a giveaway prize. Thanks Warner Brothers!”

“Full Sponsorship:
- Passing out of any swag that you would like to send (not required) and business cards while at the conference
- A shirt will be made just prior to the conference with your logo placed nicely in view to wear for a full day of the event (logo must be approved by sponsor and by blogger)”

“If during the testing process, we are not satisfied with your product – you will be contact to discuss matters privately. _____ does not publish negative reviews on companies and products. The purpose of this blog is to be a beneficial resource.’

Disgusted yet? I guess one could take from all of this that women are a powerful force in social media and that’s why the media is courting them so aggressively. What I take from it is that these women (certainly not all) are susceptible enough to compromise their ethics in order to get free stuff, make a few bucks, and/or get attention from big manufacturers.

I find this particularly frustrating because parents are often so anxious about finding the best and safest products for their children, and frequently rely on the social web to make purchasing decisions. I know I researched every product ad nauseum on the Web when I was pregnant with Reed. It scares me to think that people might actually make a purchasing decision based on what they read on one of these blogs.

I’m pleased to see that the FTC is starting to pay attention to the social media world. Starting December 1, 2009 –

the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

Awesome! While I doubt this will be enforced, I’m glad the government is trying to impress on people the fact that blogs are influential media and bloggers should be held to the same ethical standards as journalists and other media personalities.

How long will it take for the IRS to get in on the game? I sincerely doubt that most of these people are claiming these freebies on their taxes. If a blogger receives a free stroller, they need to claim it on their tax return. For mommy bloggers who get products on an almost daily basis, that would end up being one heck of a tax burden (and not much fun to keep track of either).

All this “blogola” makes the blogosphere less about building community and sharing stories and more about getting freebies from companies (for the blogger and the blog readers). And while it might make bloggers feel special to get all this attention and/or compensation from big companies, these companies are using them for “word-of-mouth advertising” that costs significantly less than any sort of magazine advertising they do.

There are still some great parenting blogs out there. One I particularly value is Z Recommends, which is both a parenting and consumer advocacy blog. While they do get products to review — in an effort to provide advice about specific classes of products like sippy cups — they give away everything they receive. And most of their posts are devoted to child safety issues like BPA, lead, and other chemicals in products for children. They have broken a lot of big stories on their site and represent for me the best of investigative journalism and blogging.

As Z Recommends has shown, parenting blogs have the power to change things for the better. Just like in our little corner of the blogosphere, parenting blogs can be a space for parents to connect around shared experiences, to help people make informed decisions, and to create powerful change. And I know the parenting blogosphere isn’t all bad. I’ve seen strong communities built around the experience of having multiples, having miscarriages, and saving money/time (shoutout to Rachel!), and those blog networks are full of wonderful women and men who blog to connect, share with and support others. It’s not all disgusting, but sadly, the disgusting is so darn visible.

I just want to say how grateful I am to be part of a blog community where people contribute to share ideas, connect with others, and contribute to the profession. I know that I’m getting “the straight dope” from the library bloggers I read. Some people might be more diplomatic or politic than others, but they don’t write about or review things simply because a company asked them to. I can count on one hand the number of posts in my five years of blogging that were written by library bloggers because a company or individual gave them something. And I love that I can believe in the bloggers I follow and trust in their integrity. Thank you for being the ethical people you are.

I get lots of emails from publishers, authors, software developers, etc. asking me to review their products in exchange for a free copy. My answer is always no. Always. Because I don’t want to lose your trust over something so meaningless. These folks not trying to send me things because I’m cool or they like my writing, but because I have a good-sized audience and Google rank. Just like my negative posts about Pottery Barn were highly ranked in Google searches, a positive post about a technology or book would also end up towards the top of the Google results. I don’t see that as an opportunity to promote companies that give me stuff; I see it giving me a greater responsibility to be ethical, honest and always write things with my audience in mind. If people are going to find my writing on topics first, I need to do my best by them. I may not post as often as I should, but I promise you that I will always be an ethical blogger.